“Well, if that’s all it takes,” said Lulu, “I’d like to be the Sugar Plum Fairy, please. It’s about as likely to happen.”

“Lulu! Mom! Emma!”

“For heaven’s sake, Lulu,” said Emma, “can’t you make the smallest bit of effort to grow up a little? You’re twenty-four now, not fourteen.”

“And I’m so sorry I’m not prematurely middle-aged like you. ‘Can’t you make the smallest bit of effort to grow up?’ What on earth are you going to sound like when you really are forty-five instead of just pretending to be?”

“That’s enough,” said Fee. “This conversation is going downhill, and I am going to change it now. Lulu, honey, I’d like you to be very kind, please, and do me a favor.”

“Great,” mumbled Lulu. “The old distraction technique.” But there was that in her mother’s voice which was not to be dismissed.

“I’d like you to go into the attic, please,” said Fee, “and find something for me.”

“Oh, Mom!” said Lulu. “I hate the attic. It’s dark and dusty, and there’s a ghost up there, Emma gave me nightmares about it for years.”

“Well, your father’s out of town, and there’s no way I’m balancing on that ladder at my age, so I’m going to have to ask one of you lithe young girls, and the one I’m asking is you.”

“Why me, though? Why not Helen Mirren?”

“Spiders,” said Sophie. “I have arachnophobia, remember?”

“I’d like to see you remember it if someone offered you a part in the next Spider-man movie.”

“Mom says if it ever became a hindrance to my career, she knows a hypnotherapist, don’t you, Mom?”

“So it’s okay to have it as long as it only stops you from doing favors for other people? Nice one.”

“You could always ask Emma,” said Fee, innocently.

“Go ahead,” said Emma. “Ask me. I wonder what I’ll say?”

Lulu sighed. “Okay,” she said. “Since I’m the only one stupid enough to do it. What is it you want, Mom?”

“Oddly enough, it’s your aunt Amy who wants it,” said Fee. “There’s an exhibition coming up at the Massachusetts Historical Society, and she wants to offer a collection of recipes my grandma Cissie put together and had privately printed back in the 1920s. It’s somewhere among my collection of papers from home, in the far corner under the eaves.”

“Oh, fine,” said Lulu. “Great idea, Mom. There are enough papers in there to sink a ship—with a bit of luck you won’t see me again till next Christmas.”

“Yes!” Sophie balled her fist in triumph. “Score, Mom.”

“I don’t think you’ll need to go through all of them,” said Fee. “There’s the big trunk with all of the papers in it, and then there’s that little bookcase next to it, and I’m pretty sure it’s in there. It’s not very big and it has a red cover—if you’d just be an angel and take a quick look for me, then I can tell Aunt Amy that at least we tried.”